Chelsea 2 – 2 Bournemouth

Reece James’ stoppage-time free-kick rescued a point for Chelsea after a scintillating 2-2 draw with Bournemouth at Stamford Bridge.

Andoni Iraola’s side were heading for a famous victory after second-half goals from Justin Kluivert and Antoine Semenyo had cancelled out Cole Palmer’s early opener.

Bournemouth were heading for fifth, level on points with Chelsea, but James produced a moment of magic in the fifth minute of stoppage time to lift the roof off Stamford Bridge and rescue a point for Enzo Maresca’s side, who are now five matches without a win in the league.

The visitors were the form side coming into the game, unbeaten in a club-record eight Premier League games. However, Chelsea, who hadn’t won in four matches in the league, started full of confidence and took the lead with Palmer pulling the strings from the off.

After being mentioned in 10 of the first 14 posts in Sky Sports‘ minute-by-minute commentary, Palmer finally had his goal and it came after some brilliant forward play from Nicolas Jackson. The striker held the ball up before turning his man and playing Palmer in on goal. Faced with Mark Travers, Palmer sold him a dummy, putting the Bournemouth stopper on the deck, before rolling the ball into the net for his 14th league goal in 21 appearances.

Bournemouth barely had a kick in the first half but they roared back in the second to leave Chelsea, who missed a host of chances, reeling.

It was breathless stuff as Bournemouth came out with renewed vigour and they were rewarded straight away when Moises Caicedo barged over Antoine Semenyo in the penalty area. Referee Robert Jones pointed to the spot and Kluivert made no mistake to bring the visitors level.

Then came the game’s controversial moment.

All Bournemouth’s good work could have been undone when David Brooks cynically took out Marc Cucurella off the ball. Cucurella had done similar to Brooks in the early stages of the game, and the Bournemouth forward remembered the incident. The referee was sent over the screen by VAR but luckily for Brooks, he brandished a yellow card.

It was the first time in the Premier League that a referee has rejected a red-card review at the monitor and it was the first monitor rejection of any kind this season.

Bournemouth went on to take full advantage as Antonie Semenyo’s rocket of a shot flashed past goalkeeper Robert Sanchez to send them on their way to what they thought was going to be a huge win, but substitute James had other ideas.

Story of the match in stats

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